At the end of her interview with Krista Tippett at the Chautauqua Institution in New York on July 11, 2012, Zen abbot Joan Halifax led the audience through this "guided meditation on encountering grief — grief as something ordinary, part of life and humanity." Please download it and share with friends and family.

One of our fine priests used this quiattoon, a sort of parable, from Chesterton at the conclusion of his homily yesterday. It's quite telling and although food for thought, even more cause for comtemplation and perhaps redoubling of efforts to stand up, in Faith. This was aimed squarely at what the government is doing regarding Religious Liberty. Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good—” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark. -GK Chesterton, Heretics (1905) [Nice quote.]

The first time I heard guided meditation was on a Spanish website that discuss these issues. Having a good voice for narrating a guided meditation is not easy to find. We must have a soft voice and pleasant to transport to a relaxed state of consciousness.